


by the grace of the fire

by falcine



Series: like father like son [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: -shrugs-, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 03:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12334458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falcine/pseuds/falcine
Summary: He knew the truth of Ben before he was born, but it took the temple collapsing around the both of them for Luke to truly accept it.He knows the truth of Rey the day she breaks Ahch-To.





	by the grace of the fire

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is a 'verse now

They’re the same. 

The thought snakes in one night, sitting by the crackling fire. Rey is prodding the stack of wood with a stick, crouched on her haunches and sweat beading her brow. When she knocks a precarious piece of wood too far and it collapses into the pile, a wall of sparks flash up. The warm brown of her eyes catches the light, for a second, and Luke thinks of another pair of burning eyes, wreathed by flames. 

But then she laughs, smile splitting her face, and the moment breaks. 

Even made of the same star-stuff, housing the same unbearable, crushing force, there is one crucial difference between them: Rey is not his mistake. She is not his burden to bear. 

 

* * *

 

He knew the truth of her the day she broke Ahch-To. 

Already weary of this strange, miraculous, force-sensitive girl, Luke had never thought she could hold such raw strength within her. But the kyber within his old lightsaber—his  _ father’s  _ old lightsaber—sung when it rested in her hands. That should’ve been his first clue.

That bright afternoon, when she swung the blade, the whole stone pillar came shuddering down. 

“Don’t let it overwhelm you,” he called into the settling dust, squinting to find her against the rubble. “Don’t try and grab onto it, just let it flow through you.” 

He found her, eyes closed, panting, and she was so bright it hurt to look. There, under the brilliant blue shock of sky, Rey breathed out, and cracked the island in two.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know if I can teach you any more,” Luke says. 

Rey starts. “What?”

He gestured towards that crack now, following it as it slopes up, jagged edges disappearing under a pile of loose rocks. Rey notices and follows his line of sight, then looks down at her hands, dangling before her, and scowls.

Luke finds himself at a loss for words. 

“I’m sorry,” Rey says. “I don’t know what that was. I just did what you told me to—I let it all pour out, and I didn’t think about where it would all go, and then…” She looks up and meets his eyes, worrying her lip between her teeth. “I don’t know what I did.” 

“That’s why I can’t—” Luke cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what that was either, Rey,” he says. “It’s beyond me.” 

“You know better than I do.” There is an unspoken  _ you’re Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi Master—of course you do.  _

Slowly, Luke shakes his head. 

“Please,” Rey says, scrambling to her feet, but sounding smaller. 

Luke leans his elbows on his knees, hands clasped before him. The flames dance, fury bright. “I’ve already failed once,” he admits. “The last time I tried to teach someone like you, it didn’t end very well.” 

 

* * *

 

He knew the truth of Ben before he was born, but it took the temple collapsing around the both of them for Luke to truly accept it. 

There was nothing but the calm, the two of them meditating alone in the dying light of the sun. The rest of the students were sparring just beside the temple, underneath a precarious outcrop of slate. There had been nothing, and then Luke had stolen that serene moment to break the news:  _ you’re going back, Ben. Your mother misses you. I have to focus on the new students, and I’ve taught you enough.  _

The truth was that day by day, it grew harder, watching Ben grow out of his baby fat, his face sharpening into something too-familiar. Every morning, Ben had insisted on the two of them, going out to the flat mirror lake for a moment or two, and every morning, all Luke could do was stare down at their reflections in the water and let dread settle in his stomach like sediment. 

So when he called Leia, said he had to focus on building an academy, said he was too busy, said Ben missed her, well. Leia understood. 

Ben had stared at him, wide eyed and open mouthed, and Luke had put his hand on the (his) boy’s shoulder, and then—

Everything after that was fire. But before the rubble, Luke had coughed, tried to claw himself out of the smoke, and saw only blazing eyes, then the tears. 

 

* * *

 

In the still of night, they both think of the same thing. The same someone. 

“Tell me about him,” Rey says, brows furrowed. “How did you try and teach him?” 

“Not very well.”

She scoffs. “That’s an understatement, isn’t it?” 

Luke raises an eyebrow. “Fair.”

“What was he like? Before?” 

At that, he has to give pause. There was so much of all of them in Ben. So much of all their hopes and dreams had ridden on his shoulders, even if some part of Luke knew that was a doomed endeavor from day one. 

“Quiet,” he says instead. “He never talked much. Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve turned out better if we made it easier for him to.” 

“What’s that mean?” 

“I loved him,” Luke says. “We all did. Maybe too much.” 

Rey frowns. “How is it possible to love a person too much?”

“I tried to save him from himself,” Luke murmurs. “I thought if I pushed him away, it would be easier on the both of us. I never considered that he might’ve seen that as abandonment.”

At that, Rey falls still and silent. She holds her jaw with an iron edged will. Something flickers, the will of the force matching the ever shifting unpredictable flames, and panic flares briefly in Luke’s chest until she closes her eyes, relaxes her shoulders, and the spark dies. They both breathe a little easier. 

Rey tosses the stick back into the fire, then sits down, leaning back on her elbows as she tilts her chin towards the dotted sky. “That’s the worst thing you can do to a person,” she says, voice thick. 

“I know.” 

“Is that why he left?” 

Luke nods.

Rey sprawls her legs out in front of her. “Is that why you want me to leave, too?” 

At that, Luke has no words. 

_ She’s not yours,  _ some insidious voice says in the back of his mind. It crackles like the fire. Rey meets his gaze, calmer than she was before, though her mouth is set in a hard line. She looks nothing like Ben. She looks nothing like any of them, her hair a tangled mess about her head, only open curiosity in her eyes. 

“I’m not him,” Rey says. Something hard-edged lines her voice. “I’ll never be him. I’m not  _ afraid  _ of this,” she says, thumping her chest. “I just want to understand it.” 

Something hotter than anger simmers below the surface of her eyes.

“You never told me where you were from,” Luke says.

Rey furrows her brow. “Does it matter?” 

“No,” Luke says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Call it curiosity.” 

Rey’s scowl deepens. Something passes by overhead, some ship or else some doomed star, lights flaring over them and the broken island. Rey tilts her head down, and the light paints one side of her face a slick, glowing yellow. 

“I’m from Jakku,” she says. “Somewhere else before that, I’m sure, but Jakku’s all I remember.” 

At that, Luke’s face splits into a grin. The irony of it makes his head spin. He used to sit and wonder if Ben would come back to him, prodigal and furious, here to destroy the last of his own legacy without even knowing the truth of his birth. But now, here he is, faced with a desert girl with Ben’s power and his old burning hope, bright but sharp, ready to fight in whatever way she can. 

The road ahead of them stretches, long and steeped in dark. 

“Alright,” Luke says. He stands, clears the sand out of his old metallic joints, and offers Rey a hand up. “Maybe there’s something left I can teach you.” 

She smiles up at him, sunshine in the night. “Thank you,” she says. 

They put the fire out. Luke brushes his cold hand over the ashes left over and wonders if this is a second chance, if Rey can control that bright and terrible power within her, if Luke can fix his mistakes—maybe it means the tide can be changed, maybe it means some things aren’t beyond saving.


End file.
